A hearing to decide whether murder charges should be dismissed against a former Naval Postgraduate School professor might take place Thursday.

Then again, it might not.

Lawrence R. Jones, 71, is to appear at a hearing before Judge Julie Culver, who will consider his motion. Jones is charged with murdering his wife, Norife Herrera Jones, 29, who was known to friends as Janie.

Hearings on the motion have twice been postponed and Jones' attorney, Paul Meltzer, said it is possible Thursday's hearing could be delayed.

Meltzer announced his intentions to request a dismissal of the charges in October after Jones was ordered to stand trial.

Meltzer said the request is based on "legal issues" that surfaced during a preliminary hearing held in September, but offered no further details.

Although murder trials often take years to make their way through Monterey County courtrooms, Jones' case has been particularly beset by delays.

Even his initial arraignment, usually a matter of days, was postponed four times during seven months, frustrating Janie Jones' relatives, many of whom live in the Philippines.

Police say Janie Jones was shot dead with a shotgun in Jones' Spray Avenue home in Monterey and dismembered. Detectives believe the slaying took place in late August or early September 2012.

Janie Jones' remains were found Sept. 7, 2012, beside a road in Aromas.

Court records show divorce papers for the couple were finalized Aug. 31, 2012, in Monterey County after five years of marriage.

Lawrence Jones is being held without bail, in part because he was traveling about the time his wife's remains were found. Navy school officials said he went to Southern California on school business before he was arrested in La Mirada.

He bought a ticket to fly from Los Angeles to Rio De Janeiro about that time, but Meltzer said in court the ticket was for round-trip vacation travel.

The Santa Cruz-based attorney has alluded to his client's unstable mental state about the time of the slaying and police records show Jones has a history of suicide attempts. When he was first booked into the county jail, correctional officers kept him under suicide watch.

Because of his age and the notoriety of the case, Jones is housed in a one-man cell in the jail's isolation unit.